


oops, my hand slipped.

by Murf1307



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Homophobic Language, M/M, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 14:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire overhears two douchebags talking shit about Enjolras.</p>
            </blockquote>





	oops, my hand slipped.

**Author's Note:**

> written for [this](http://fiercejolras.tumblr.com/post/55346085036/grantaire-once-overheard-someone-talking-shit) tumblr post.

"Yeah, yeah, you know the one," the guy was telling his friend.  Both of them, for the record, looked like walking frat boy stereotypes.  "Fucker with the long hair and who doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut?  Enjolras, or somethin’?"

"Faggot, that one," muttered the other guy.

Even as the fricative  _f_  slipped into the stop of the  _t,_ Grantaire was already moving.  He put a hand on the second guy’s shoulder and wrenched him around, voice deathly cold as he asked, “Repeat that, please.”

The guy looked at him like he’d lost it, but he looked a little intimidated by the snarl twisting Grantaire’s mouth — or maybe it was the ugly, fierce slant of his asymmetrical jaw and his hollowed-out cheekbones; Grantaire had never been a good-looking bastard, but he could use that to his advantage now and then.

His buddy, not so much.

"What, you a friend of his?"  He said, taking a threatening step forward.

Grantaire laughed, bitterly.  ”Fuck if I even know.”

In the moment of distraction, the second guy wrenched out of his grip and took a swing at him.  Grantaire saw it coming and slipped sideways, then laid a haymaker into the guy’s jaw.

He went down, out cold.  Grantaire turned to the first guy.

"If I hear you talking shit about him ever again, you’ll get the same fucking treatment," he said coldly.  "Now drag your buddy out of my sight, he’s fucking ugly."

Now the guy looked scared.  Grantaire remained unimpressed.  The guy grabbed his friend and dragged him off.

It was then when Grantaire registered the pain in his hand, and examined it.  His knuckles were bruised, and —  _shit_ — a couple of fingers felt broken.

He groaned and set out for Health Services.

——

The next day was a meeting day.  Grantaire’s hand was in a soft cast — three fractures, knuckles bruised badly, the whole deal — and he was late.  It was the lateness, he supposed, which drew Enjolras’s eye.

"Grantaire," Enjolras acknowledged, breaking off in the middle of what had obviously been a fervent speech about  _something_.

Grantaire was in pain and in no mood for any of this.

He presumed that Enjolras going to get right back to what he’d been doing before Grantaire showed up, but, as he slid into his usual seat in the back corner booth of the cafe, Enjolras followed him there.

"What happened to you?" he asked, gesturing at the cast.  "How did you…?"

There was something uneasy, something hovering between concern and confusion, in the way he spoke, and it set Grantaire on edge.  Grantaire, in return, lashed out.

"Fighting for the future," he drawled, words biting as he made it abundantly clear with his tone that he’d been doing no such thing.

There was a flash of hurt in Enjolras’s expression, which faded to resignation and disappointment — old familiar friends of Grantaire’s, when it came to Enjolras and he — as he turned and walked away.

Grantaire had regretted the words as soon as he’d spoken them, but he couldn’t take them back, so he pushed the feeling aside, instead turning to dull the throb in his broken hand with more whiskey.

This was how they operated, after all.  It wasn’t as if any of it was new.


End file.
